


Lost (Find Me)

by AgapantoBlu



Series: Short-fics from Agap's Schrödinger Tumblr [3]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fire, M/M, Waiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 12:35:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17001774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgapantoBlu/pseuds/AgapantoBlu
Summary: When news come that Erik's workplace went up in flames and Nicky can't get ahold of his fiancé, the Foxes close their ranks around him and wait.





	Lost (Find Me)

**Author's Note:**

> This story might be a bit heavy on the nervous waiting side. Be careful.

 

Aaron is just exhausted. Any form of energy in his body has been depleted. He’s tired and done and he just wants to collapse face first in his bed and forget about the world for six hours solid. That’s it. Is it too much to ask?!

So when he opens the door of his room - his new room, his Andrew-free room, his No Neil Allowed room - the quiet is a bliss. The quiet is not suspicious until he’s already supine on the sofa and considering never getting up again.

That is, until he hears Matt voice from the bedroom, speaking hurriedly and lowly just to be followed by Nicky’s voice, strangled and wet and broken but clearly shaped as a, “N-No!”

For a moment, just one, it’s Thanksgiving all over again and Aaron is on his feet and by the door before his brain wakes up enough to tell him that there’s no way in hell Matt would do something like that to Nicky. The moment of hesitance keeps him out of the closed door, but he’s close enough to hear from inside.

Nicky is definitely crying, sobbing so much he can’t speak through the sudden inhales.

“N-no, Ma-tt, M-att, n-o. No, no, no, ugh.“

“Nicky, listen to me, buddy, come on. You can’t know something happened to him. It’s too early to know anything and you’re only hurting yourself thinking like this. Come on, please, just try and take a deep breath with me, just one, we can go from there, come on.“

Nicky’s answer is a gurgle. “You do-n’t get it, what if-”

“Nicky, they’re still taming the flames. There’s no official report yet. For all we know, the fire alarm went off and everybody evacuated before anyone got hurt. We need to wait for an update on the news and you can’t do that if you faint on me.“

“But he’s not answering!“

“Maybe he left his phone inside! Nicky, come on, if your office caught fire you wouldn’t bother picking anything before running the fuck out. Erik is a strong, healthy man, okay? I’m sure he made it alright.“

“No, no, Matt, no-“

“Nicky-“

“I can’t. Matt, I can’t without him, I can’t. I never managed, I can’t, he’s- Matt, he’s everything.“

“I know, Nicky, I do.“

Aaron can’t see from the crack of the door, but he can picture his cousin’s devastated face all the same. The tears falling, the snot, the reddened eyes and the splitting lips.

“He’s the only person in my whole life who ever loved me back.“

Aaron jerks. 

Matt’s voice is a mindless string of empty reassurances and broken attempts at calming Nicky down. Aaron’s mind is a pit of, I do, Nicky, I do, but he knows those words will never make it past the dam of his teeth, so he clenches those close and turns on his heels.

He doesn’t like Erik, never had and never will if for no other reason than one day Nicky looked him in the eyes and told him he was leaving them - leaving him - for that blond motherfucker. But this is bigger than Aaron’s petty hatred and he slams his old room door open with the whole weight of his shoulder.

Kevin is in the kitchen cussing at the blender, but Andrew is on the beanbag playing some video-game. Neil is on the couch, PC on his legs open on a paused Exy match, and Aaron gulps bile down and looks at him. “Can you track someone in Germany?”

Neil blinks like the dumbass he is. “What?”

“Tracking. Someone.“ Aaron hisses. “In Germany. Is there anyone in your mobster family who doesn’t want to kill you and can check on someone in Stuttgart, for fuck’s sake?!“

“Aaron.“ Andrew’s voice is not a warning for he’s treating Neil. Neil can fight his fights on his own, or so everybody on the Foxes seems to believe despite all that went down last year. No, Andrew honed on the info Aaron gave like a hound on a trail and there’s only one person who’d have reason to track someone in Stuttgart, on their team. And whom Aaron would care about. Coincidentally, this person is also one of Andrew’s.

Aaron turns to him, and when did he start panting? “A fire broke out in Erik’s office. Nicky’s been trying to get in contact with him, but no results. I think he’s having a panic attack.”

Andrew is on his feet. Neil is too, meekly muttering that he’ll call his uncle as Andrew stalks past him to push Aaron out of the way.

Aaron doesn’t waste time thanking Neil.

He follows suit after Andrew, for as fast as his brother is walking, and in the wake of his fury he walks through just another slammed door until they are in the bedroom. Matt is kneeling on the floor trying to hold Nicky up, but Nicky is trembling and gasping and trying to hit at his phone with not remotely enough fine motor coordination to manage whatever he’s trying to attempt.

Andrew rips the thing out of his hand and throws it on the bed. Considering it’s him, he’s being nicer than Aaron would have expected.

Andrew kneels in front of Nicky, waits for their cousin to meet his eyes and then commands, “Quit it.” Nicky flinches violently. “Neil is checking with his contacts. He’ll give us an answer soon enough. Now cut it out.”

“Come on, Minyard,“ Matt tries, but Aaron kicks at his foot and he closes his mouth.

Nicky gulps, once then twice then finally he seems to be breathing easier. “I don’t want to lose him, Andrew.”

“You don’t get a say on it. Get the fuck up and sit on the bed.“

Nicky struggles to do just that. Matt ends up helping, and Aaron steps around Andrew to sustain him on the other side. His twin is wound too tight at the shoulders to even think he’d be okay with physical touch.

They have just put Nicky on the bed, back against the wall, when Neil walks into the room. Slowly.

Nicky looks up at him and gapes, but no words come out.

Neil’s eyes flash to Andrew but return to Nicky immediately after. “He’s not among the lightly intoxicated. His secretary told the police he’d pushed her out and went back to check that their colleague on a wheelchair had made it out. He already had though, so they don’t know what happened. But this doesn’t mean anything. Four ambulances already left with any person who showed burns of any degree, so he might be on one of those. There’s only two severe emergencies and they are already pushing them into surgery rooms. My uncle’s friend is moving to the hospital to check on the people there; another is staying on the spot to get news from the firefighters.” He looks pale. “I’m sorry, we need to wait a bit longer.”

Aaron watches Nicky curl on himself with a sob, hide his face on his knees and shake with crying. Hesitantly, he puts a hand to his shoulder. What else is he supposed to do?! Nicky has never been shy of asking for support when he needed it! Aaron doesn’t know how to deal when he’s so unresponsive.

They wait an eternity for Neil’s contact to call them again. Nicky cries himself to an empty shell and then just stays there, bent forward, until Aaron suggests he raises his head to open his airways a bit more to avoid another attack. Nicky just lets his head hit the wall behind him and then it lulls to the side until it hits Matt’s shoulder and stops there. Andrew is sitting on the other bed, perfectly still with only Neil by his side, not touching even by mistake. Kevin walks in at a certain point, quiet; he must have heard because he has a water bottle he passes to Aaron. Their joint attempts at making Nicky drink have meagre results, but Kevin nods and sits himself on the floor in silence.

The girls come looking for them at a certain point. They walk in and stop, the air of the room getting to them. Kevin pushes them out then goes with them. There’s some talking in the living room before they all return.

Renee sits down by the side of the mattress and pulls her cross to her lips. Aaron thinks she might be mentally praying. He doesn’t see the point in it, but he knows Nicky is still religious and it would make him glad to have Renee’s prayers. He doesn’t seem to be noticing anything that happens around him, though, and that’s scarier than hearing him cry through the door.

When Neil’s phone rings, everybody but Nicky jumps. Still, he blinks and his eyes track on Neil’s face, so that’s probably a good thing.

Neil answers in the room. Aaron would want to tell him to go the fuck outside, what if it’s bad news?! But Nicky would freak out then, and he doesn’t think he can take it anyway.

Neil listens, then blinks, then outstretches his hand, phone still held tightly, toward Nicky. 

Nicky moves _fast_. Aaron wasn’t expecting it and almost gets elbowed in the face. But when his cousin brings the phone to his ear and then bursts out sobbing out German words, he thinks it’s almost worth it.

Neil’s man found Erik in a corridor of the hospital. His burns had to be treated, but they weren’t sever. He might get a scar on the lower right side of his back, but Nicky yells at him when he tries to joke about it.

The girls walk out first; for some reason, Matt immediately after. Neil and Kevin stay for longer, the Monsters once again, before they leave to go get something to eat for everyone.

Nicky slumps against Aaron’s body, for shorter that it is. Andrew stands up stiffly and moves to sit on the other end of the bed, closer but not enough to be reached. 

Nicky talks and talks and talks until Erik has to go with a nurse and promises to let him know more via his parents. Then Nicky’s arm falls to his side, boneless, and he starts crying again in Aaron’s sleeve.

“I thought-“ He doesn’t finish, but Aaron’s pretty sure he knows what Nicky thought.

“You’re paranoid,“ Andrew offers, and Nicky giggled through the sobs. “Now, really, cut it out.“

Nicky doesn’t, but Andrew doesn’t insist. Aaron pushes down the disgust at all the snot on his shirt and lets his cousin cry himself to sleep.

It’s not always that any of them gets to shed relieved tears, after all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> May it still exist after December 17th, my Tumblr is @agapantoblu


End file.
